Metal Detectors Pacemakers

In a control simulation of airports, including prolonged beatings with metal detectors handheld device produced no function abnormalities among 388 patients evaluated by Clemens Jilek, MD, German Heart Center in Munich, and colleagues.

The experiment based office needs further confirmation in the detect in the real world, the group warned in the November 1 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine
However, the results should be reassuring, Jilek and colleagues suggested calling the safety inspection as “probably safe for patients with pacemakers and ICDs.”

Metal detector gates, which generate much stronger electromagnetic fields, also seemed safe for cardiac rhythm device patients in a previous study the same research group.

Because of concern about interference, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) recommends that travelers apply for a search rather than at the airport if you have a pacemaker or ICD.

The FDA has reported 44 cases in which hand-held metal detectors or anti-theft devices, possibly, had interfered with cardiac rhythm devices from 1988 to 1998.

However, the reports of the detection technologies involved older and older pacemakers, while there have been recent reports of problems in the airport control a patient’s summary page in the Annals said.

Therefore, Jilek group bought two of the most used metal detector wands and tested in patients who were routinely followed up your pacemaker or ICD in two centers in Germany from September 2009 to December 2010.

After verifying that each device was working normally and rhythm with the patient lying under continuous electrocardiographic monitoring, who stole the detector over the pacemaker or ICD and takes at least 30 seconds.

When investigators questioned the devices to check for abnormal rhythm, which found no rhythm or troubleshooting or reprogramming the device during or after exposure of the metal detector.

There were also no changes in the ECG.

The researchers said the experiment was exaggerated under – with metal detectors at its highest point on the device and takes 10 times longer than typical security control – to maximize the chances of interference.

Clinically significant interference is unlikely in real world environments, they said.

Pacemaker-dependent patients not likely to lose consciousness, unless the signal oversensing inhibits the function of the device for more than six seconds, but the exposure device to a metal detector in routine screening in most three seconds.

For patients with ICDs, inappropriate shocks oversensing require repeated for six seconds, the device takes to load for a shock, which is also longer than expected exposure that the electromagnetic field of the metal detector, the group argued.

The results are likely generalizable, they added.

The 209 patients with pacemakers were 81 different devices across 37 different models of “families” from 11 different manufacturers, which together cover 73% of those available in the past decade.

Similarly, the 179 ICD patients were 61 different devices covering 76% of families available in the CIE previous 10 years.

“However, our negative findings can not be considered definitive because the study used a sample of patients and devices, the number of each device model tested was small and usually consisted of a single device in one patient” wrote Jilek group.

Device manufacturers and other research groups to test a wider range of devices in real world settings security control, they suggested.